Crew to retire frigate Vandegrift after 30 years of duty

By

Sam Fellman

141212-N-MB306-015 SAN DIEGO (Dec. 12, 2014) The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Vandegrift (FFG 48) returns to Naval Base San Diego from its final deployment to the U.S. 4th Fleet area of responsibility. Vandegrift participated in Operation Martillo, a U.S., European and Western Hemisphere partner-nation efforts targeting illicit trafficking routes in coastal waters by Central America. Vandegrift is scheduled to be decommissioned in January 2015. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Zachary Bell/Released)

The frigate Vandegrift is scheduled to be decommissioned after 30 years of service by its crew Thursday in a ceremony at Naval Base San Diego.

The frigate returned from its final cruise in December, a seven-month patrol in 4th Fleet during which the crew seized 19,833 pounds of cocaine and intercepted other narco-traffickers, according to a Wednesday release from Naval Surface Force Pacific.

But not all the attention on deployment was positive. The crew experienced a disruption mid-cruise when its skipper was fired in October. Cmdr. Luis Alva was removed for allegedly groping the buttocks of the wife of one of his chiefs at a bar in Panama City, Panama.

The frigate was named for Gen. Alexander Vandegrift, a Medal of Honor recipient and hero during the Battle of Guadalcanal who later became the Marine Corps commandant.

After the watch is stood down, the Navy will prep the frigate to be sold to a foreign Navy. The last six frigates are slated to be retired by October.

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Sam Fellman